The Partnership Fund for Program Integrity Innovation

Dr. Mergel discusses the managerial, cultural, behavioral, and technological issues that public managers face in starting and maintaining Wikis.

Public leaders face the challenge of finding ways to bridge silos in their organizations. In this report, Dr. Mergel examines one tool that can help them do this—Wikis. Many of us are familiar with Wikipedia, which relies on thousands of active contributors who share their knowledge freely on a dazzling breadth of topics, with an accuracy rate rivaling that of traditional encyclopedias.

Government managers in regulatory agencies seek to design regulatory programs that ensure industry compliance while fostering collaboration and trust between government and industry. Voluntary regulatory partnership programs (VRPPs) are one method used by government managers to ensure industry compliance while encouraging the flow of information between industry and government without fear of retribution. Much of the discussion over these partnership programs has focused on the traditional government role as regulator and whether that regulation should be solely a government function.

Dr. Donald Kettl’s new book is finally out: “The Next Government of the United States:  Why Our Institutions Fail Us and How to Fix Them.”   It obviously goes beyond the testimony he provided before Congress in July where he provided his advice on transition.  It provides a clear perspective of the governance challenges facing the incoming Obama Administration. 

Senator Obama says we need to move from a 20th century government to a 21st century government.  Like Senator McCain, he is calling for a program-by-program review of the existing government.  But neither of them paint a picture of what a 21st century government might look like.